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Re: Unversioned files held by repo

From: Les Mikesell <lesmikesell_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:46:29 -0500

Paul Koning wrote:
>
> Les> A likely scenario is that the items in question are build
> Les> targets, not dependencies, but you'd like them stored
> Les> temporarily or for others to be able to access them without
> Les> having to build their own.
>
> Ok, so the real issue is that you want to use a SOURCE control system
> to be an arbitrary database for arbitrary stuff, and Subversion
> doesn't do that because it's a source control system.

A better description is that I would like to teach users that the right
way to handle anything that might need saving for later retrieval is to
commit it to subversion and the right way to get the current version of
something is to update their checked out copy.

> I think maybe you're looking for an anvil and complaining because the
> hammer you have doesn't make a good anvil... :-)

Maybe, but it's not a really bad anvil either, just awkward sometimes.

> Personally, I would much prefer Subversion to concentrate on being an
> efficient and reliable source control system, and not get distracted
> by completely unrelated requirements that aren't just irrelevant, but
> in fact harmless, to its mission.

I think of it as a VERSION control system - and just think it would be
nice to be able to manage the versions it maintains with a handier tool
than dump/filter/load. I'm not asking for a new capability here, just a
more convenient one.

> By the way, have you tried doing what you want the regular way? Given
> that Subversion (unlike CVS) does binary deltas, storing build output
> -- even though that's not what Subversion is intended for -- may in
> fact work just fine. Especially with today's big disk drives...

I agree that it is very good - and have dumped in decade-old CVS
histories without bothering to sort out all the parts we don't need now,
but I haven't found a disk yet that users can't fill if you tell them to
save everything. And the disk itself is somewhat irrelevant compared to
the backup media and mechanism to support it. I'm looking at this from
the perspective of already having 10+ years of history accumulated and
knowing that a lot is already useless. How long do you 'store
everything forever' proponents think of as 'forever'?

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell_at_gmail.com
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Received on 2008-03-12 21:43:53 CET

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